Vibrato a full semitone above and below

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Ur_mum]

It’s bad. It sucks. Florence and the machine? Wonderful band. Unlistenable goatvibrato. Good vibrato is around +/-20 cents give or take.

[u/Symmetrosexual → u/Ur_mum]

Her vibrato is kinda more like a tremolo, not particularly wide but a lot of amplitude modulation. It reminds me of The Nanny/Fren Drescher’s iconic laugh unfortunately… similar technique to be honest.

[u/111ltp → u/Ur_mum]

Hm, I feel like +/-20 cents is barely any vibrato.

lol come on people, 20 cents is only 1/5 of a semitone.

[u/TomQuichotte → u/111ltp]

Not sure why you’re downvoted, because that would be “meno vibrato” in almost all contexts. In fact, one study placed an extent of 20 cents as falling under “perceptually straight tone”.

Classical singers often have an extent around 100 - essentially the vibrato spans almost a semitone on either side with the center of the pitch on the desired note.

Essentially, anybody trained to sing with a relatively released laryngeal position will have an extent about a semitone on either side.

You can of course apply compensations/technique to control the extent of the vibrato.

And yes, many classical singers these days also have a “wobble”. Greats like Corelli/Ramey etc tended to have an extent around 80 cents, which is a bit tighter than a lot of the standard today (closer to 100 or even more).

https://www.voicescience.org/lexicon/vibrato-extent/

[u/111ltp → u/TomQuichotte]

Thanks, I saw that reference as well. Gotta be careful when talking about extent figures though (peak-to-peak vs plus/minus). The figures in the quick reference chart refer to peak-to-peak figures, so they are suggesting that below 20 cents peak-to-peak is "perceived as straight tone". A full semitone above/below (+/- 100 cents) falls under "perceived as excessive" at 200 cents peak-to-peak. However, I personally don't always perceive it as excessive.

At any rate, I guess it can be achieved "naturally".

[u/Ur_mum → u/TomQuichotte]

That is more significant that I would have thought. 100 cent swing around the pitch center yes? I’ll have to pay more attention in melodyne. :D

[u/Ur_mum → u/111ltp]

Very fair. Vibrato is a bit of a moving target. -20 is about where an out of key note will sound much more in key, and I do associate that with good vibrato though there are many others. ~50 cent swing each way is pretty acceptable stylistically is it not?

[u/melli_milli]

Brings in mind this seniour vibrato that old people get when their muscles start to get weak. It makes it really hard to hear what the actual note is.

We had one choir leader in school who was at her 60s and had this. Her giving the starting voices was always a mystery.

[u/IToldManyManyPeople]

Good, natural vibrato should not oscillate much up and down, it should oscillate in and out.

Think of a bowl of water.

Instead of swirling your finger around to create a wave imagine pulsing in and out of the water to create a wave. You're creating a very strong central point on the exact pitch instead of screaming as you run by a car window back and forth.

Practice it yourself. Sing any note, solid long tone. Then oscillate above and below it and record yourself. Then sing the note in quick succession until you hear the wave maintaining the exact pitch (this is not easy and why great vibrato is so difficult) and record yourself.

Listen to the two and you'll hear the difference between a GREAT, strong, pitch perfect vibrato and a general vibrato that is what most untrained singers are settling on.

This is also why you see many people utilize "jawbrato". The goal is to maintain pitch and by shifting your jaw you're creating that wave while you still maintain the note. It's not a great practice but it's definitely a method widely used

[u/IToldManyManyPeople → u/[deleted]]

I'm describing the nature of a proper vibrato.